Barr revenue up to £277m amid low sugar rush

Cumbernauld-based Irn-Bru maker A.G. Barr said it expects its revenue for the 52 weeks ended January 27, 2018, to be up 7.5% to £277 million amid an “encouraging” response from consumer to lower or no sugar drinks.

Barr shares rose more than 2% to about 655p to give Barr a current stock market value of around £760 million.

“It is pleasing that we have continued to outperform the total UK soft drinks market and increased our overall market share.

“Latest IRI available Marketplace data for the 48 weeks to 31 December 2017 saw the market value up 2.7% and volume broadly flat.

“Since our announcement in March 2017 that over 90% of our portfolio would be moving to lower or no sugar, we have extended our innovation and reformulation programme such that we now expect that up to 99% of our portfolio will contain less than 5g of total sugars per 100ml before the implementation of the soft drinks sugar tax in April this year.

“As anticipated, the sugar reduction in regular IRN-BRU in early January 2018 was met with widespread media interest.

“Our extensive research and testing in the preceding years gave us confidence that we had an excellent taste match and, whilst it is still early days, the consumer response to the new product has so far been encouraging.

“Our balance sheet remains robust, supported by strong free cash flow, and we have continued to invest across the business while also progressing the share repurchase programme we announced in March 2017.

“We have not been immune to the external cost pressures faced by many businesses throughout 2017, particularly in relation to the weakness of sterling, however we remain confident of delivering profit growth for the year in line with our expectations.”